'10 Things that Never Happened' by Alexis Hall

10 Things that Never Happened

Author: Alexis Hall

Rating: B

Vibe: : Cozy chaos with fake amnesia, retail shenanigans, and a rich guy who forgot how to smile

I liked this book in spite of myself.

On paper, 10 Things That Never Happened is absurd. Sam Becker, a store manager at a struggling bed-and-bath shop in Sheffield, accidentally implies he has amnesia to avoid getting fired by his cold, calculating billionaire boss, Jonathan Forest. Jonathan, guilt-stricken, takes Sam home to care for him. Sam keeps lying. They fall in love. It's set at Christmas. If you think about any of this for more than thirty seconds, it falls apart completely.

And yet here I am, completely charmed.

The book works because the author knows exactly what this book is—Hall’s not asking you to believe the premise, rather, the book encourages you to sink into it like a Hallmark movie with better dialogue and an actual sense of humor. Sam is remarkably disarming and utterly charming. He manages a team of lovable goofs in Sheffield who feel like the kind of coworkers you'd actually want to grab a pint with after a rough shift. There's Claire with her elaborate doodles, Brian with his catastrophic mattress decisions, and the whole crew who make the store feel less like a workplace and more like a slightly dysfunctional chosen family. I adored them.

Sam himself is the heart of the book. Hall does something really clever here—it's clear from early on that Sam is going through it, that there's something heavy he's carrying, but we don't know exactly what. The fake amnesia gives him an excuse to hide parts of himself, but the truth is, Sam's been hiding long before he bumped his head. When the backstory finally comes out late in the book, it reframes everything—his commitment to his team, his avoidance of anything deeper, the way he keeps everyone at arm's length even as he seems so open. It made me want to give him a huge hug and tell him he's doing better than he thinks.

The problem is Jonathan.

Look, I wanted to love Jonathan. Grumpy rich guy with a tragic backstory and a secret soft side? That should work. But he stays a bit too stiff, a bit too cold, for too long. There are glimpses of warmth—moments when you see why Sam might fall for him—but they're too few and too brief. I needed just a little more tenderness, a few more cracks in the armor, to really believe these two belonged together. The romance never quite sparked the way the rest of the book did, and that's a real shame in a book that's supposed to be a rom-com.

Still, the book has a warmth to it that I couldn't resist. The humor is sharp without being mean, the side characters steal every scene they're in, and Sam's voice—especially in the audiobook, which I highly recommend—is so earnest and endearing that I found myself rooting for him even when the plot veered into the truly implausible. (Special shout-out to narrator Will Watt, who nails the accents and brings every character to life. The audiobook is genuinely 10/10.)

This isn't a book with depth. It's not trying to be. It's cozy, it's silly, it's the literary equivalent of curling up under a blanket with something sweet and uncomplicated. And sometimes, that's exactly what you need. Alexis Hall made me fall in love with these characters.